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Investing in knowledge for sustainability |
Eighteen experts from 15 countries discussed global conditions for achieving sustainable development during the session “Investing in Knowledge for Sustainability,” which was organised by the Regional Environmental Center (REC) with generous financial support from the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea. The November 8–9 session was part of the third World Science Forum (WSF), which took place at Budapest, Hungary’s Science Academy. Closing festivities took place at the Hungarian Parliament building, where key global political leaders met WSF participants to celebrate the launch of the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and to review debate outcomes from the two-day global conference. On behalf of the REC, organisation executive director Marta Szigeti Bonifert outlined the session’s key findings as follows. Do we have to invest more in knowledge for sustainability? If the international community decided tomorrow to embark towards sustainability, could it do so? Should we invest in further preparations, or is there no more time to spare? Global challenges like limits to growth, the ecological crisis and climate change have resulted already in several international political initiatives (e.g. the 20-year-old Brundtland Report, or the EU’s just-renewed Gothenburg SDS), but not enough action. How can we invest in knowledge for political action? Global issues such as sustainability, climate change and biodiversity can no longer be studied in disciplinary isolation as before: social, economic, physical and biological sciences must converge. In many ways the ‘easy’ science is behind us. If we want to attain sustainability, multidisciplinary teams must be created. We also need to improve systems analysis techniques, and apply them more broadly. The transition to sustainability requires much more beyond steady, incremental improvement on our present ways of doing things. Politics will have to take an approach that is radical in the truest sense of the word; fundamentals need to be rethought in terms of approaches, goals and methods. Natural and social scientists, together with politicians, used this session to highlight key components for shaping a new policy approach. One example: Global carbon sinks and biodiversity reserves are systems as vital as they are unappreciated. Ecuador has challenged the world with a concrete proposal to create a scheme of fair compensation for ecosystem services—to ‘internalise externalia.’ Science must help the international community to act on the novelty of this offer, and to begin securing the survival of natural capital. In terms of global dialogue between influential geopolitical actors, the EU has emerged early on as a strong voice for sustainability. The key question is whether the sustainability politics that Europe has to offer will be able to gain global credibility? Indeed, the EU will have to ‘walk the talk’ and demonstrate to other parts of the world the possibility of raising social and natural capital at the same time and in the same region. We need more and more new, innovative institutions, such as the International Resource Panel, to develop effective resource policies. We must also cap resource consumption in absolute terms, as well as limit the resource extraction to sustainable levels in supplying regions. An ombudsman for future generations could help to bring some necessary, long-term perspective into regular political discussion and policy. As problems become more severe and pressing, one constraint in terms of rapid political conciliation will be widespread ignorance about basic facts among those officials who have to deal with sustainability-related issues on a day-to-day basis. There is an urgent need for new, large-scale training and educational programmes. While science-based knowledge remains necessary, it is not enough in itself to attain sustainability. An interdisciplinary approach is called for to bridge the division between hard-core natural sciences and the humanities. Technology needs to be paired with greater understanding of the humanities in order to really move the sustainability movement forward. Today, sustainability depends on social factors. For more information on World Science Forum visit www.sciforum.hu
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