Towards sustainable growth

4th February, 2021 Environment

Lessons from pandemic:

The COVID-19 pandemic made us realise that we are a part of nature and emphasised the urgent need to protect the ecological functions of the biosphere we live in.
The pandemic has resulted in huge economic losses.
Globally, the GDP is expected to contract 2.4% to 8% in 2020.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that the global cost of dealing with the pandemic could be from $8.1 trillion to $15.8 trillion.

Need to change the outlook:

We have to recognise that there would not be an economy without the natural environment.
Global studies documenting human ecological footprint, the decline in wildlife populations, and the conversion rates of natural ecosystems for other uses, place India among countries experiencing the highest rates of negative change.
This increases our vulnerability towards catastrophes, including pandemics. Additionally, there is a strong correlation between human density, richness of biodiversity, and the emergence of zoonotic pathogens of wild origin, which renders India particularly vulnerable.
With high human densities — among the highest diversity of mammals in the world — and a saturated interface between humans and wildlife, India is considered to be among the hotspots for zoonotic emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.

WEF’s Global Risks report for 2021:

The WEF’s Global Risks report for 2021 states that environmental risks continue to threaten the global economy.
The top five risks are extreme weather, climate action failure, human environmental damage, infectious diseases and biodiversity loss.
In terms of impact, infectious diseases top the list, followed by climate action failure. The top two risk response blind spots are climate action failure and biodiversity loss.

New models:

It is evident that policymakers should factor biodiversity and ecosystems into their economic decision-making. This will accelerate the transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to sustainable, equitable, inclusive and just development models.
The review stresses the need to find new measures for growth and development to avoid a catastrophic breakdown.
The world’s governments need to come up with a form of national accounting that is different from the GDP model, and the new system has to account for the depletion of nature and natural resources.
The evidence is overwhelming. All budgets need to reduce investments, including subsidies, in activities that will further degrade our natural habitats. By orders of magnitude, we should enhance investment in research in sustainability science.

India’s Step:

A National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being has been approved by the Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Advisory Council.
The overarching objectives are to restore and enhance biodiversity, strengthen its sustainable use, generate thousands of green jobs and encourage the Indian public to appreciate the natural and associated cultural treasures that we have collectively inherited.
This initiative has the potential to enable India to play a global leadership role in linking conservation with tangible human well-being outcomes.

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