I’ve been looking at the The World Economic and Social Survey 2011: The Great Green Technological Transformation which Gareth drew attention to in his recent post. It’s a long document prepared by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), not intended for casual consumption, and I haven’t read all 250 pages. But the theme chosen for the year’s survey is fundamental for the challenge of climate change and it’s somewhat cheering just to see the title. I thought it worth highlighting some of the content.
The survey is quite clear on the necessity for a green technological transformation. Our progress over the past two centuries has been at a cost to the natural environment which cannot continue.
“About half of the forests that covered the earth are gone, groundwater resources are being depleted and contaminated, enormous reductions in biodiversity have already taken place and, through increased burning of fossil fuels, the stability of the planet’s climate is being threatened by global warming.”
Continue reading “Revolution and realism required: UN report”
Hot Topic reader and regular commenter Simon Johnson (aka Mr February) was spurred by the discussion here about Australia’s new carbon pricing policies to dig into the details. In this guest post he looks at how the new Aussie scheme compares with NZ’s Emissions Trading Scheme…