(IPS) feature

Pressures on the world's natural systems have worsened in the 10 years since the international environmental conference known as the Earth Summit was held, a leading environmental think tank said.

These pressures range from global warming to the degradation of fisheries and fresh water, according to the Worldwatch Institute's latest State of the World report.

The report acknowledged a few social and environmental advances since the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. These included the phasing out of ozone-depleting chemicals in industrialised nations and declining deaths from pneumonia, diarrhoea and tuberculosis.

Nevertheless, ''we are still far from ending the economic and environmental marginalisation that afflict billions of people'' said Christopher Flavin, president of the Washington-based organisation.

The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, as the Summit was officially known, was hailed as a challenge to the reigning development model, which it assailed as materials-intensive, driven by fossil fuels, and based on mass consumption and disposal.

Steps in the 1990s since the Summit toward a more just and ecologically resilient world, however, were too small, too slow, or too poorly rooted, said the 265-page report.

Global warming

Global emissions of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which most scientists believe causes global warming, have climbed more than nine percent in the past 10 years.

''The global temperature record points to the 1990s as the warmest decade since measurements began in the 19th century; and scientists have documented a 10-20cm rise in global average sea levels over the past century,'' the report said. Emissions in the US rose some 18 percent between 1990 and 2000.

While the protection of the world's biological diversity was highlighted at the Summit, ongoing species extinctions since then demonstrate an urgent need to step up protection, said the report. The largest threat to flora and fauna was loss of habitat — a byproduct of human activities including farming, ranching, mining, logging and urban expansion.

The world's forests, a key habitat for threatened species, continued to disappear in the 1990s, said the report. According to the Forest Resources Assessment 2000 by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, forest area worldwide decreased by 2.2 percent since 1990.

Coral reefs, a crucial habitat for marine species, were also worse off since the Rio conference. About 27 percent of the world's coral reefs — suffering from pollution, warming sea water, mining and fishing — are now severely damaged, up from 10 percent at the time of the Earth Summit.

''Because coral reefs are second only to forests in biological wealth, such extensive losses inevitably take a great toll on many species as well,'' said the report.

Unprecedented economic growth

While the 1990s was a decade of unprecedented economic growth — adding more than US$10 trillion a year to the global economy — it was also a decade that left the number of people living in poverty nearly unchanged at more than one billion people.

''Despite the prosperity of the 1990s, the divide between rich and poor is widening in many countries, undermining social and economic stability,'' said Flavin.

Death from HIV/Aids, said the report, increased more than six-fold over the 1990s. And while people in wealthy countries were living longer than ever, some 14,000-30,000 people continued to die each day in developing nations from water-borne diseases.

The report blamed the under-funding of environmental initiatives, the stagnation in foreign aid spending, and the indebtedness of developing nations, for impeding environmental and social progress.

The Rio summit resulted in several major developments in international governance, including new treaties on climate change, toxic chemicals, and biological diversity. There was now more than 500 environmental treaties and agreements. But few of them contained specific targets and timetables, and most were weak on provisions for monitoring and enforcement, said Worldwatch.

''The UN environment programme has struggled to maintain its annual budget of roughly US$100 million,'' it said. ''At the same time, military expenditures by the world's governments are running at more than US$2 billion a day.''

Declining foreign aid

Since the summit in Rio, foreign aid spending declined substantially, falling from US$69 billion in 1992 to US$53 billion in 2000, despite a more than 30 percent expansion in global economic output over the last 10 years, said Worldwatch.

Although nations at the conference pledged to reduce indebtedness, the total debt burden in developing countries and nations in economic transition, said the report, climbed 34 percent since then, reaching US$2.5 trillion in 2000.

In order to sufficiently implement the spirit of the 1992 Summit, the report called on nations participating in the upcoming UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, to launch a ''global war on poverty and environmental degradation''.

Such a war, argued the report, should be as aggressive and well funded as the current ''war against terrorism'' because meeting basic human needs and protecting vital natural resources such as fresh water, forests and fisheries were all prerequisites to healthy, stable societies.

''Johannesburg will help to determine whether the nations of the world can jointly address pressing problems or whether we will remain on a destructive path that leads to poverty, environmental decline, terrorism and war,'' said Hilary French, co-author of the report.