Adam Koniuszewski is the Chief Operating Officer of Green Cross International, the environmental organization founded by the former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhael Gorbachev. Mr Koniuszewski talks to Daily Development about his expectations for the post-2015 sustainable development agenda as well as his hopes for an international agreement to limit global warming.  

DD: In terms of the environment, what are your expectations of the sustainable development goals in the post-2015 agenda?

AK: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provided the United Nations and the international community a framework with targets and indicators to monitor progress. This has become a catalyst for cooperative action between global aid institutions, Member States, the business sector and civil society. Although progress has been uneven across the goals, regions and countries, the overall results are nevertheless impressive. The MDG to reduce extreme poverty by half was achieved in 2010. Despite a growing world population, 700 million fewer people were living in extreme poverty than in 1990. This is especially striking when compared to the lack of progress in other areas, like climate change, where despite over 20 years of intense negotiation carbon emissions have increased by over 60%. At a time when it is increasingly difficult for the United Nations to achieve progress through multilateral agreements, the bottom up approach, participatory process, consensual and voluntary nature of ambitious and relevant sustainable development goals can be the starting point for what can become truly sustainable development. The active participation in this process of such new giants as Brazil, India and China and cooperative action towards targets that are specific, measurable, realistic and time bound can provide an avenue to pursue global peace and prosperity around shared principles of sustainable economic, social and environmental development. 

DD: Continuing economic development has for decades been perceived as a way for countries to climb out of poverty. How can this be equated with an environmental agenda often seen as aiming to limit development?

AK: Because Western economies developed rapidly with little regard for protecting the environment until the 1970s, there is an impression that poor countries should focus on development first and consider environmental protection as a luxury that can be afforded once they have become affluent. The contrast between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two countries that share the same island but with dramatically different prospects, illustrates how shortsighted such an approach is. Deforestation and environmental degradation in Haiti is such that the country has little hope for recovery. In contrast, the Dominican Republic is lush with greenery and forests that help provide water, food security and brighter prospects for economic and human well-being. 

China has long maintained its right to focus on economic development, but the mismanagement of natural resources coupled with horrendous levels of water, soil and air pollution are now hurting not only human well-being but also prospects for continued economic development. 

We have been very slow in recognizing the true relationship between nature and the economy. Celebrated economist Robert Costanza estimated that the value of the services that nature provides are far greater than previously thought—even exceeding the value of the global economy. In 1997, Costanza conservatively valued “ecosystem services” at a multiple of global gross domestic product (GDP). This helped dispel the myth that a strong economy is needed to protect the environment. In fact, it is the other way around. Humanity depends on nature, and so does the economy. 

The myth, however, persists, largely due to our reliance on flawed measures of human progress, including GDP and the traditional profit-and-loss statements. Bad indicators lead to dysfunctional and short-sighted decision-making that undermines the natural capital that humanity and the economy depend on. This is reflected in the newspaper commentaries that economic activity surrounding the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico outweighed its negative impacts or by timber companies saying that forests have no value until they are cut down, ignoring the impacts on soil erosion, nutrient loss, fisheries, biodiversity and so on. Environmental degradation is often an unintended consequence of industry and commercial activities, but it does not need to be so. There are compelling examples of innovative approaches where protecting nature and economic considerations have been reconciled. In New York, protecting the Catskills watersheds north of the city has helped avoid US$ 6 to US$ 8 billion in capital investment for chemical filtration and hundreds of millions in operating costs—a great example of how environmental protection makes good economic sense and supports human development and progress. The focus on improving energy efficiency and lowering the carbon intensity of the economy in China are certainly steps in the right direction that will benefit nature, the economy and the Chinese people. 

DD: Can you give some concrete examples where environmental protection goes hand in hand with poverty reduction?

AK: Let me tell you about a very successful start-up in Thailand that has now developed into a global recycling empire with over 700 branches around the world that diverts plastic, metals and other wastes from landfills, incinerators and nature to be recycled and sold at a profit. This labour-intensive business it is particularly well suited for developing countries with high unemployment and low wages. In its flagship recycling centre in Wongpanit, Thailand, a town of 800 000 on the outskirts of Bangkok, the 250 employees process 500 tonnes of waste per day. By turning waste into a resource, this entrepreneur transformed a problem into an opportunity for the environment and for society. It is estimated that in the urban areas of Asia and Latin America up to 2% of the population depends on waste-picking for their livelihood.

DD: How optimistic are you that the world will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C by 2050?

AK: For the first time in 2014, global emissions of greenhouse gases have stalled despite continuing economic growth of 3%. This is significant because it marks the first global fall in emissions that is not associated with an economic downturn and demonstrates that decoupling economic development from the consumption of fossil fuels is possible. Even more impressive is the fact that OECD economies were able to reduce emissions by 4% while growing their economies 7% during this past five-year period. With the proper policies and incentives in place, including the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies, progress could be even faster. 

This being said, no matter how successful we are at lowering emissions it will be difficult to meet the politically agreed 2°C target that is meant to safeguard humanity from “dangerous” climate change consequences. The alarming impacts of climate change that we are already experiencing result from “only” 0.9°C of warming over pre-industrial levels and we must realize that another 0.6°C of warming is already programmed for the future because of historical emissions. Even if we were to limit temperature rise to 2°C, we will still experience massive and irreversible impacts.  

DD: How close do you think we are to a catastrophic tipping point in environmental degradation? Are there certain elements of climate change that are already irreversible?

AK: We will not simply face a gradual process of climate change as commonly assumed. We run the additional risk that climate systems are non-linear and subject to sudden and dramatic change. This is why scientists are concerned about passing tipping points that can initiate “runaway” climate change that would be beyond human influence. Some of these feedback loops include the loss of white ice, which reflects back 80% of the solar radiation (known as the albedo effect), the degradation of forests and ecosystems, which reduces their capacity to absorb carbon, the melting of permafrost, which releases methane—a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more damaging than CO2—the release of clathrates from oceans or the acidification of oceans, which reduces the capacity of plankton to absorb carbon and destroys coral reefs.  

Many of the climate change impacts are already apparent—changing weather patterns, extreme weather events, more forest fires and the acceleration of species loss. But other human activities exacerbate the crisis, including deforestation, overexploitation of resources and pollution. This combination of human impacts is causing the sixth massive extinction of species in geological history. Climate change is a part of this story, and certainly some of the ice-melt as well as species and biodiversity losses that have already occurred cannot be undone in a human timescale. The good news is that nature is surprisingly resilient and that many of these changes will take place over long periods of time. The faster and more decisively we act the better our chances and the cheaper it will be.  

There is also another perspective in terms of impacts on social behaviour and economies that is worth considering. Many of the climate consequences already have profound impacts on the most affected societies. The consequences of changing weather patterns on food production, sea-level rise and extreme weather events may first trigger social tipping points by rendering reconstruction and a return to historical patterns uneconomic. To some extent this is already happening in the small island states of the Pacific, where the prospect of relocation to higher ground appears to be the only plausible solution in the short to medium term.