Warren Parker: Research to meet global challenges
Warren Parker
The burgeoning demands of the Indian and Chinese economies and concerns about energy security and impacts of climate change have focussed my attention and, I hope yours, on the earth’s capacity to continue to meet the apparently insatiable needs of a wealthier and more populated world.
The UNEP Global Environment Outlook report, released in October 2007, notes persistent environmental problems of climate change, deteriorating fisheries and extinction of species.
These themes were reinforced with the mid–November’s release of the final UN Inter–governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) update. Both reports concluded that if these huge challenges are not addressed then our survival may well be threatened.
The pace and extent of change since 1987 is enormous: the world population has grown 34%, average incomes have increased 40%, trade has trebled, annual global emissions of CO2 have risen by about one third, and one in 10 rivers now fail to reach the sea because of upstream drawoff. And, if current trends continue to 2025, 1.8 billion people will face intolerable water shortages.
Food demand is projected to increase 2.5–3.5 times, energy supplies have become more ‘inadequate and insecure’ and their consumption is contributing to global warming to the extent ‘the Earth’s climate has entered a state unparalleled in recent history’.
Many more sobering statistics and trends are covered in the report – but there are also great examples of initiatives to improve the environment. The UNEP report indicates that radical change will be necessary and it is in this context that research organisations like Landcare Research have a critical role to play. Our work on biodiversity is of particular significance. While much commentary has been about climate change we need to pay
at least equal attention to biodiversity and the vital role it plays in sustaining healthy ecosystems and in providing the food, fibre and other vital services on which we depend.
New Zealanders enjoy one of the world’s richest sources of biodiversity but the UNEP estimates biodiversity is now declining 100 times faster than in the past.