World lacks enough food, fuel as population soars: UN
Reuters
Jan 30, 2012
Translation by Autumnson Blog
London: The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a UN report warned on Monday.
倫敦：世界正在耗盡時間來確保有足夠的食物、水和能源以滿足迅速增長人口的需要，並避免將三十億人送入貧困，一份聯合國的報告星期一警告。
As the world’s population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.
正當世界人口看來準備現在從七十億增長到2040年接近的90億，而中產階級消費者人數在未來 20年增加三十億，對資源的需求將以倍上升。
Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to UN estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply. And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.
即使到2030年，世界將需要至少50％更多的糧食，45％更多的能源和30％更多的水，據聯合國估計，在不斷變化環境創造出對供應的新限制的時候。報告說，而如果世界未能解決這些問題，它有風險迫使三十億人陷入貧困。
現在比起2000年，有多二千萬人營養不良。路透社
Efforts towards sustainable development are neither fast enough nor deep enough, as well as suffering from a lack of political will, the United Nations’ high-level panel on global sustainability said.
朝向可持續發展的努力既不夠快亦不夠深，以及遭受缺乏的政治意願，聯合國的高級別全球可持續發展小組說。
“The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required,” the report said.
“目前的全球發展模式是難以為繼，為了實現可持續發展，全球經濟的轉型是必需的，“報告說。
“Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis … offers an opportunity for significant reforms.”
“在邊緣修修補補並不會做到工作，當前的全球經濟危機...提供一個作重大改革的機會。“
Although the number of people living in absolute poverty has been reduced to 27 percent of world population from 46 percent in 1990 and the global economy has grown 75 percent since 1992, improved lifestyles and changing consumer habits have put natural resources under increasing strain.
There are 20 million more undernourished people now than in 2000; 5.2 million hectares of forest are lost per year — an area the size of Costa Rica; 85 percent of all fish stocks are over-exploited or depleted; and carbon dioxide emissions have risen 38 percent between 1990 and 2009, which heightens the risk of sea level rise and more extreme weather.
The panel, which made 56 recommendations for sustainable development to be included in economic policy as quickly as possible, said a “new political economy” was needed.
“Let’s use the upcoming Rio+20 summit to kick off this global transition towards a sustainable growth model for the 21st century that the world so badly needs,” EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in response to the report, referring to a UN sustainable development summit this June in Brazil.
Action points
Among the panel’s recommendations, it urged governments to agree on a set of sustainable development goals which would complement the eight Millennium Development Goals to 2015 and create a framework for action after 2015.
They should work with international organisations to create an “evergreen revolution”, which would at least double productivity while reducing resource use and avoiding further biodiversity losses, the report said.
Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.
To make the economy more sustainable, carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time.
National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones.
Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.
Governments and scientists should also strengthen the relationship between policy and science by regularly examining the science behind environmental thresholds or “tipping points” and the United Nations should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organisation, the report said.
The report is available here.
http://www.firstpost.com/world/world-lacks-enough-food-fuel-as-population-soars-un-198213.html
聯合國報告：世界正面臨一場“全球性社會危機”
世行警告可能出現糧食危機
食物的未來：餵食七十億
準備應對可能的真正大饑荒
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