The UN Environment Programme’s new report Navigating New Horizons, produced in partnership with the International Science Council, is not easy reading.
It’s not just that it is a dense 100-page document, but because it paints a grim picture of the challenges we face.
However, toward the end, the report notes a shift that is both hopeful and relevant to local action, as I will discuss in a couple of weeks’ time.
But first, what of the future challenges? Unsurprisingly, given it is a report from the UN’s environment agency, there is a strong focus on the environmental challenges we face.
But there are also important social and governance challenges, and all these challenges are not only growing and speeding up, but converging and “appear to be synchronizing,” becoming a polycrisis.
The first challenge is the shifting relationship between humans and the Earth, such that “continuing environmental degradation and systemic shifts are pushing natural ecosystems and humans to limits.”
The UN speaks of a “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
In addition to the well-known challenges of climate change, it has been estimated that by 2050, less than 10 per cent of the Earth’s land area will remain free from significant human impact, while “humans will have eliminated 38-46 per cent of all biodiversity.”
Pollution is a particular concern, with “350,000 chemicals and substances listed for production and use.”
Moreover, of the thousands of chemicals “registered as being toxic, or persistent, by a few countries … the vast majority have not been measured in the environment or in humans.”
As a result “the hidden health and ecological costs [are] likely underestimated,” and are particularly serious for infants and children.
A second and related challenge is scarcity of and competition for critical resources. While oil, gas and, more recently, rare earth minerals have gotten a lot of attention, more worrying is scarcity of such fundamental determinants of wellbeing, indeed survival, as food, water and land.
“Climate change exacerbates water scarcity,” which not only damages food production but will “increase the likelihood of conflicts.”
Indeed, a new era of conflict is a third challenge: “Armed conflict and violence are on the rise.”
Not only are there “fifty-nine state-based conflicts across 34 countries … higher than any time since 1946,” but “increasingly, conflicts are propagated and sustained by the engagement of non-state actors, political militias, domestic criminal groups and terrorist organizations.”
And as we see only too well, drones, satellite imagery, AI and other technological changes are changing the nature of conflict.
Moreover, “armed conflicts consistently result in environmental degradation and destruction … triggering food and water insecurity, loss of livelihoods and biodiversity depletion.” These impacts are exacerbated by “the weaponization of access to water, food, energy and critical infrastructure.”
These changes contribute to a fourth challenge: mass forced displacement.
“Whether due to conflict, climate change or other external pressures,” the result is that home becomes uninhabitable, so people have “little choice other than to move.”
Today, one in 69 people — around 115 million — are forcibly displaced, but the International Organization for Migration reports that that “environmental impacts and climate change alone … will force more than 216 million people across six continents to be on the move within their countries by 2050.”
Women and children are disproportionately harmed in these situations.
Another key challenge is the digital transformation, including social media, AI and other technologies, the impact of which it is hard to estimate.
On the one hand, “these innovations hold tremendous promise to accelerate improvements across various systems, from energy to mobility to food and beyond.”
But we have also all seen the downsides of some of this technology, and the ability to manage the technology in the face of rapid change driven by private sector initiatives “looks increasingly difficult.”
A sixth challenge is persistent and widening inequalities, both within and between countries, which many of the other critical shifts only make worse.
I will explore this challenge in more detail next week along with the two remaining critical shifts, which relate mainly to governance challenges, before starting to look at the potential for positive responses and the implications for local action.
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
