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Forget about covid and Brexit - many argue that the real challenges we face are actually the loss of biodiversity and climate change. But how do those two critical issues relate to the success of our local economy?
This week, a group of islanders called the Economic Council has published a document called 'New Perspectives' setting out five themes which they believe should help form a long-term vision for our economy.
Continuing today, Express is publishing more detail on each one of those themes...
"We are reaching a pivotal stage on Earth where it is clear that the greatest challenges in the 21st Century are biodiversity loss and climate change (CC). However, sustainability, if applied across society, with an economic model in service to how we want society to be, not controlling it, will be the bedrock for the change required to avoid the worst calamities.
The most commonly used definition of sustainability derives from the Brundtland Commission in 1987; Understanding how to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their own needs.
Pictured: "What once was a distant worry is now on our front pages on a daily basis. Our current activities and growth-chasing policies are eroding future generations’ ability to meet their needs."
Whilst in 1987 there was a plethora of scientific understanding that changing planetary systems would be detrimental to human life on Earth, the threat seemed more distant. We now know that the process is accelerating, tipping points of planetary boundaries are being reached or have been passed, that we are entering a period where rudimentary control is slipping from our grasp. What once was a distant worry is now on our front pages on a daily basis. Our current activities and growth-chasing policies are eroding future generations’ ability to meet their needs. Recent reports (The Living Planet Report, 2020) have comprehensively detailed the loss of wildlife and wild places. Two thirds of the world’s wildlife has been wiped out since 1970. More than 75% of global food crop types rely on animal pollinators, pollinators whose populations are in collapse. 90% of fisheries are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted (The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services, 2019). The average global temperature has risen by 0.95 degrees Celsius over the 20th century and the past 20 years have been the hottest on record. The wildfire seasons in Australia and Western America are now months longer than they were in the past. Change that in planetary terms would usually take place over tens of thousands of years is happening in the space of decades.
Global food supply insecurity, infectious disease outbreaks, mass migration from collapse of freshwater access, are just a few of the consequences of tipping the planet out of balance.
There is a temptation to say, but we, Jersey, are a small jurisdiction, with little contribution to global failures of policy, increasing emissions, of depleting biodiversity. However, we will be impacted by the changes underway. Sea level rise is a true threat and the Jersey Sea Level Rise report (2017) detailed the likely scenarios we face. Defences will be overtopped and coastal businesses and homes threatened without interventions (Jersey Shoreline Management Plan, 2020). Storm systems globally are changing, becoming more frequent and of greater magnitude. As an island nation our connectivity to the United Kingdom and the continent is crucial for resource supplies, whether by boat or plane.
The collapse of pollinators and microbial systems will result in poorer agricultural output and poorer human health, leading to increased healthcare costs. Warming summers and wetter winters will further threaten productivity. There are utilitarian and pragmatic reasons of significance to Jersey. There is also the ethical and moral dimension. As Western Europeans we live highly consumptive lifestyles, we import deforestation in our food stuffs, we add to a warming planet via our actions, and to the decline in species, species that provide the ecosystem services we need to survive.
Pictured: “Businesses are more dependent on nature than previously thought, with approximately $44 trillion of economic value generation moderately or highly dependent on nature.”
This is the worrying situation we face, but from a societal and economic perspective there are not only threats to our future but opportunities. If we truly measure the cost to societies, of loss of natural capital and the ecosystem services produced, against the cost of solutions, transitioning to a sustainable, circular economy represents a cost saving. The total value of nature to us on an annual basis is estimated to be between $125 trillion to $148 trillion.
For example, it is estimated that every dollar spent on protection of coral reefs, important hatcheries for global fisheries, $24 is returned in planetary services (Copenhagen Consensus Centre).
In addition the World Economic Forum in 2020 heralded the following: “Businesses are more dependent on nature than previously thought, with approximately $44 trillion of economic value generation moderately or highly dependent on nature.”
Sustainable design of our economies and use of resources makes sense for the world and for Jersey. What we need to do is identify the Jersey opportunities.
Our Government made a declaration of climate neutrality by 2030 (May 2019), a carbon neutral strategy was published (December 2019) and a citizens panel will soon be instituted to address pathways. Jersey has adopted the Kyoto protocol with its climate change commitments. However, governments worldwide have a long history of not meeting the targets laid out in international agreements or their own plans in relation to the environment. The responsibility gets pushed to the next incumbents of parliaments and assemblies. In 2020 alone the world has failed to meet the Aichi targets by a substantial margin. On Jersey, emissions have been reduced by 47% in relation to 1990’s levels, largely predicated on switching to French sourced energy and not on adopting renewable energy development locally. On Island renewables would help make Jersey energy secure into the future and in a volatile external environment where energy supplies could become flash points for future conflict this is not only prudent but essential. By adopting a more progressive approach Jersey could aim to be the first carbon positive jurisdiction, which in itself requires investment and job creation, either via Government, the private sector or a public-private partnership. This includes tackling transport use, a particular challenge for an island.
Much private transport on Island is not fit for our small roads and the sale of increasingly large oil or diesel vehicles that serve no purpose in a domestic context should be discouraged via legislation, pricing and/or tax policy, not only to reduce emissions but also for public safety. Biofuels should not be encouraged as they necessitate further imported deforestation and biodiversity loss. Instead making a truly world class public transport system will reduce the current barriers to reduction in private transport use.
Pictured: "...Making a truly world-class public transport system will reduce the current barriers to reduction in private transport use."
Regeneration and infrastructure policies should fully incorporate low carbon technology both in construction and long-term functionality, deployed at both domestic and corporate levels. Embedding biodiversity plans in every infrastructure project not only recognises their importance in line with the Governments’ common strategic policy areas, but begins to create a ‘new normal’ that buildings need clear biodiversity bolstering and carbon emissions reductions plans as much as they need snag lists or schedules of work.
Our powerful finance sector should have a laser attention to ESG investment development and lead in the strategic investment/disinvestment of environmentally damaging companies. This is already being demanded by discerning investors and the growth of environmental impact investing could be led from Jersey. Our finance sector could make bold and difficult targets – could we have the first forest positive investment sector on Earth?
We should aim to have the lowest ecological footprint possible for any jurisdiction (with a clearly defined goal developed) whilst still helping people live happy and fulfilled lives. Waste of all kind should be rigorously discouraged or via costs associated with waste disposal more heavily levied on both business and domestic settings. By finding solutions to a future of increasing food insecurity, climate adapted agriculture on an island scale that serves as a global model could be promoted. Broadening crop diversity, investigating mosaic food production landscapes, vertical cropping systems and enhanced pollination protection, could not only create more security on Island but further enhance our agriculture branded cash crops, opening new gourmet markets.
Tackling the use of plastic on Island is a highly visible problem that could propel further action and Jersey could become a single–use plastic free island. Roles here need to be played across sectors by individuals, companies and Government with a key actor being supermarkets. Legislation to limit use of plastics, and other disincentives should be introduced. Clearer information and options relating to imported deforestation in products serves to tackle both CC and biodiversity loss, and again policy options should be deployed.
Pictured: "Legislation to limit use of plastics, and other disincentives should be introduced."
By embedding sustainability across all sectors, new jobs in renewable energy resource management, waste mining, adaptive management, renewables engineers, sustainability designers, and so on, could be created. The World Economic Forum recognised that if countries and business prioritised nature it could create 395 million jobs by the end of 2030. We cannot yet know the breadth of new opportunities, but we can already set this in the context of ‘old’ jobs likely to be lost to AI in the next few decades. Embedding sustainability in society will need both disincentives, whether legal frameworks or culture change, plus incentives to change behaviours. In addition, we have little time left to tackle the large problems we face globally and so speed of decision making and commitment to action quickly is paramount.
The key for Jersey to proceed is to first endorse a future-focused mind-set that builds the concept of adaptability and change into its DNA. Resistance to change will see us left behind in a changing innovation and job market, and psychologically leaves us as an island trailing, rather than being truly active participants in solving global problems.
There is also much to be learned from elsewhere that can already be applied in the context of Jersey. Bringing together a cross-sector group of participants to identify all the areas where we can make progress, rigorously building a model of the change we want to see, with monitoring and evaluation against clear targets, and identifying all barriers and benefits to each course of action gives clarity to what we do instead of despondency when looking at CC and biodiversity loss as mountains too big to scale. Chasing after and exceeding global standards, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, will put our efforts in a global context. This widens the ability to attract the innovation and investment from those who want to be part of an Island that is punching above its weight. It also enlivens our tourism industry to offer a new eco-tourism. Our forebears who thought big about what a finance sector could be on Jersey used a long horizon. We can do the same with sustainability and transform Jersey to an Island of excellence.
For societies and governments worldwide the ‘environment’ has largely been seen as a ‘nice to have’. We make buildings sustainable, if budgets permit, or provide protection to habitat, but rarely to benefit us economically in the short-term. The time has come to accept that if we do not protect the environment our individual businesses will suffer and our economies will suffer. As individuals, our health, both physical and mental, will suffer, creating even greater strains on health services. The current pandemic is a global environment emergency being played out in detrimental health and economic outcomes to humanity. Let us not keep putting our heads in the sand. Now is the time to make bold commitments, set ambitious targets and fund them with the seriousness they require. It would be something to be proud of if Jersey were the first global jurisdiction to truly do so, making our small Island a beacon for the globe."
Read the full report here.
Entrepreneurs and innovation needed to stimulate growth
