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Human Development Report 2007/2008 : A Focus on Climate Change

By Nassima Kebir, UN Millennium Campaign      Friday November 30, 2007

Earlier this week, the UNDP published its annual Human Development Report (HDR). This year, the research focused on one global concern - and the seventh Millennium Development Goal: climate change and environmental sustainability.

Released a week before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, the report gathers a wide variety of data, which reveals that the global warming trend will not cease unless or until decisions makers take global joint actions.

The report states that these actions must be led by the richest countries, as it is only through examples and setting up partnerships programs with the poorest countries that we can hope to improve the situation in the near future. "Working together with resolve, we can win the battle against climate change. Allowing the window of opportunity to close would represent a moral and political failure without precedent in human history" said Kevin Watkins, the lead author.

Five years prior to the end of the Kyoto agreement, decisions need to be made in order to face this new global challenge that concerns us : us, our children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, this issue will have an even greater affect on developing and poor countries, which often privilege rapid economic growth and industrialization instead of environmental awareness.

The report also highlights one fact that is often overlooked and forgotten: halting devastating climate change is a major part of the fight against poverty. According to the data, if little or nothing is done to improve climate change, the poorest countries will suffer the greatest consequences and will continue in their "long-run cycles of disadvantage". In other words, the 2008 Human Development Report rings the alarm about a key element that we often ignore when it comes to development: environmental sustainability.

Let's see now what will happen during the Climate Change Conference in Bali next week, and if the reports' warnings will turn into concrete measures in the minds of our decisions makers.

To get more information about the 2008 Human Development Report, log on to http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/ 

 Nassima

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