Big ideas needed to envision environment safety

Bharat H Desai

Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law, JNU

The first week of June 2022 became a rare ‘environment week’ as it witnessed two back-to-back global environmental milestones prior to the World Environment Day (June 5). June 2-3 saw the 50th anniversary of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm) and June 4 brought the 30th anniversary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). What does it portend for our environmental future?

In his opening remarks on June 2 in Stockholm, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented about the grim environmental scenario wherein the global “wellbeing is at risk” and the “Earth’s natural systems cannot keep up with our demands.” “We haven’t kept our promises on the environment,” said Guterres, admitting the collective failure.

Similarly, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Inger Andersen expressed guilt over what went wrong in the five decades of the global regulatory enterprise. “If Indira Gandhi or Olof Palme were here today, what excuses would we offer up for our inadequate action? None that they would accept. They would tell us that further inaction is inexcusable,” Andersen unhesitatingly said.

On the one hand, celebrations of these environmental anniversaries show the penchant for ‘global problems need global solutions’. Yet, the global environmental conditions have only worsened over the years, notwithstanding all the mega global conferences, plethora of multilateral environmental agreements, creation of institutional maze and spending of staggering amount of funds.

The world seems to be in a dire situation since Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 are set to go haywire, the 2021 Global Hunger Index shows the alarming situation of chronic hunger, the 2021 FAO report shows 2.37 billion people without access to adequate food and the 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showing that the world is not ready for measures to meet the 1.5°C greenhouse gas targets.

So, what went wrong?

It seems the humankind is facing one of the biggest tests as much of the development today is not sustainable. The conflicting national interests and quest for material wealth litter the pathway. The graphic description of “two worlds, two planets, two humanities” by economist Mahbub ul Haq prior to the UNCHE haunts the world. “In your world, there is a concern today about the quality of life; in our world, there is concern about life itself which is threatened by hunger and malnutrition,” Mahbub ul Haq said. Gandhian (1908) warnings about choice between human needs and greed as well as the lament of Tagore (1908) on “progress towards what and progress for whom” have all been left far behind.

The prognosis of the world we live in shows mindless developmental quest that endangers the survival of life itself on earth. The quagmire of profligate lifestyles and wasteful consumption patterns stare us in the face. The global population of 7.9 billion today is expected to reach the frightening level of 10 billion by 2050. What kind of life will it entail for the future generations? The words of the late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, expressed poetically in Hindi, have come true that the “human being has reached the moon but does not know how to live on the earth!”

As the world assembled again in Stockholm after 50 years, it was an apt occasion to look back to look ahead. In the June 6, 1972, address, the then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme prophesied: “The decisive question is in which direction we will develop, by what means we will grow, which qualities we want to achieve, and what values we wish to guide our future…there is no individual future, neither for people nor for nations.”

The only other head of government present in Stockholm 1972 was Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The Indian delegation comprised three Cabinet ministers: Karan Singh, C Subramaniam and IK Gujral. “Indira Gandhi looked at the environment not from an elitist viewpoint. She did it due to her genuine conviction that the destruction of the natural habitat would not only adversely affect wildlife but also ultimately the lives of the people living in the area,” said Karan Singh while sharing his recollections with me.

In her Stockholm address, Indira Gandhi drew a realistic global picture of the time by underscoring that the development is “one of the primary means of improving the environment”. She invoked the wisdom from the Atharva Veda, thus: “What of thee I dig out; Let that quickly grow over; Let me not hit thy vitals or thy heart.”

At Stockholm 2022, the sovereign states ought to have assessed the trajectory of 50 years, what went wrong and how the world needs to move forward. However, the Stockholm+50 ended with a strange 10-point listless ‘Presidents’Final Remarks to Plenary’.

The address of the Indian Prime Minister at the 75th anniversary of the UN General Assembly (September 2020) makes it clear that “we cannot fight today’s challenges with outdated structures.” It would require comprehensive UN reforms. In fact, an explicit reference to the ‘trusteeship of the planet’ by the Indian PM at G-20 Riyadh virtual summit (2020) provides one such indication. The 2021 report of the UNSG has alluded to one such reform for a ‘repurposed’ Trusteeship Council. Will the UN member states embrace the idea to make the Trusteeship Council the primary forum for the trusteeship of the planet?

The ‘Stockholm moment’ of 2022 provided a unique opportunity to the heads of government to go down in history. Unlike Olof Palme and Indira Gandhi at Stockholm 1972, no world leader stepped forward at Stockholm 2022 to don the mantle to lead the planet out of the crisis of survival. Ironically, the UNSG’s call to “lead us out of this mess” remained a cry in the wilderness. As the 2020-22 gruelling spell of the Covid-19 pandemic proved, Nature is the final arbiter in showing ‘limits’ to the humans.

Hope it brings peoples and nations to their senses before it is too late.

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