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Environmental problems putting global progress at risk – UN report
03.11.2011 08:14 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
Environmental deterioration threatens to reverse recent progress in human development for the world’s poorest, warns a United Nations report released today, calling for urgent action to slow climate change, prevent further degradation and reduce inequalities.
The annual UN Human Development Report, this year entitled Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All, argues that human development is intricately linked to environmental sustainability, and that this in turn must be approached as a matter of basic social justice for current and future generations.
«The report’s central message is that equity and sustainability are inextricably linked that one will not be achieved without the other. It raises a number of issues which are important for our understanding of this relationship and offers guidance for moving forward on both dimensions,» said UN Development Programme (UNDP) chief Helen Clark at the report’s launch in Copenhagen.
The report, presented by Miss Clark and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, notes that remarkable progress has been made by poor countries with low rankings on the Human Development Index (HDI). In the past 40 years alone, the countries placed in the lowest 25 per cent of the global rankings improved their overall HDI by 82 per cent.
The report states that if this pace of improvement continues, most countries would be able to enjoy the HDI of the top 25 per cent by the year 2050, which would represent an extraordinary achievement for global human development.
The report also includes the HDI rankings, which covered 187 countries according to standard of living taking into account health, education and income data.
This year, Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the rankings, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Niger and Burundi are at the bottom of the list.
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