Environment
Introduction
When green travel meets big business
Giulia Carbone explains why the tourism industry needs to address ecological threats
Tourism needs a healthy and pristine environment. No other industry relies as heavily on unspoilt scenery and natural diversity to attract the crowds. When nature suffers, travel companies suffer, too. The question is how to create synergies between the tourism industry and conservation efforts, allowing both to thrive while minimizing negative impact.
For many conservation projects, ecotourism seems the perfect way to raise funds. Travellers in search of pristine natural beauty can help to finance...
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March 7, 2013
Resilience: What it is and why it’s needed
Lee Howell addresses the question: What does it mean for a country to show resilience in the face of risks it cannot manage alone?
From natural disasters to financial shocks, global risks are exogenous events, which go beyond the capacity of a country or corporation to manage on their own. Traditionally, the practice of risk management has focused almost entirely on preventable risks, where a culture of strict compliance can mitigate, or even avoid, worst-case outcomes. Filling the analytical gap on global risks, the World Economic Forum publishes annually its Global Risks report to assess...
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February 27, 2013
Biased against clean investment?
Between 2004 and 2010 annual global investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and associated technologies soared from just over US$ 50 billion to about US$ 250 billion. Clean energy technologies also became cheaper – most notably solar photovoltaics, but also wind turbines, LEDs, batteries and all the associated control technologies – so that each dollar of investment started to buy a lot more equipment.
Recently, however, progress has stalled, and 2012 was the first year in which investment globally dropped, by 11%. Yet it would need to increase to between US$ 750 billion and US$ 1...
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February 19, 2013
Green is all about scale
Stephan Ouaknine follows a roadmap towards green economy
Globally, US$ 70 trillion will be spent on infrastructure by 2020. With these investments come choices. We could “green” our power, water, transport, buildings and other systems, and work towards a sustainable and prosperous future. Or, failing to do that, we could face the disastrous consequences of a 4 degrees Celsius average global rise in temperature.
These decisions are outlined in the Green Investment Report released by the Green Growth Action Alliance and the World Economic Forum on 25 January, as the Forum’s Annual Meeting kicks...
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January 25, 2013
An aspirational lifestyle for 7 billion people?
There is an unconscious and slightly patronising attitude out there in the world about doing our bit to help poor people with some aid, which does not seem to see the link to the casually well off lives that many of us lead. I sensed it as an eminent line up of world political and business leaders discussed what will follow the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the World Economic Forum at Davos on Thursday evening.
It was up to Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the UN to remind the panel that the world committed to develop a set of universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at...
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January 25, 2013
Choosing the long path to sustainability
Frans van Houten discusses the environmental challenges of our age
Recently, a public policy debate played out in the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, an increasingly familiar debate about how society allocates limited resources to meet people’s needs. It was the kind of discussion that takes place every day in council chambers, legislative halls and bureaucrats’ offices across the globe. In the case of the Dutch Ministry, officials were considering whether to save money and reduce light pollution on a busy 30-kilometer stretch of freeway by simply switching off the...
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January 24, 2013
It’s the economy, stupid
Here at Davos we participated in a fantastic scenario planning workshop with Schwab Social Entrepreneurs and business partners including Boston Consulting Group, Credit Suisse and Siemens. One of the scenarios we examined was that of a ‘Positive Economy’ when, by 2030, true environmental and social costs and benefits are included in national and company accounts. This is the big prize for sustainable development – when we can harness market forces and align them for everyone’s benefit to tackle the major challenges we face such as climate change and political insecurity caused by...
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January 23, 2013
The post-2015 development agenda
What are the implications of trying to articulate a sustainable development future? The Global Agenda Outlook 2013 brought together John McArthur, Senior Fellow of the United Nations Foundation and Wu Changhua, Director of Climate Group, China. James Bacchus, Honorary Professor of Law at the University of International Business and Economics, moderated the discussion.
John McArthur: Since the Millennium Development Goals were formulated, we have had a pretty historic global conversation about how developed and developing countries can partner to achieve an ambitious agenda – to eliminate...
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January 23, 2013
Ideas @Davos: Biofuels of the future
How do you feed the world, provide biofuels and remain sustainable? Kristala Prather shows us how microbes could provide an answer.
Microbes, small living systems which take sugars and turn them into fuel, could help to solve the world’s energy shortfall as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions, explains Kristala Prather in the above video.
We have to be able to take ideas from a lab into the real world, she argues. Synthetic biology is used to custom design microbes that produce replacements for diesel and gasoline. If this work succeeds, we’ll drastically reduce the...
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January 23, 2013
Can green investment pay for itself?
In a series of blog posts leading to the launch of the Green Investment report 2013 on 21 January by the World Economic Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance, a number of leading voices will present their particular perspectives. In the following post, Simon Zadek, Senior Fellow of the Global Green Growth Institute, discusses the current trends on Green Investment.
According to the Green Growth Action Alliance`s report, Green Investment, US$100 trillion is needed by 2030 to finance infrastructure needs worldwide. Ironically, succeeding as currently envisaged would be a disaster for investors...
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January 16, 2013
Top 10 myths about climate change and green investment
In a series of blog posts leading to the launch of the Green Investment report 2013 on 21 January by the World Economic Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance, a number of leading voices will present their particular perspectives on the subject. In the following post, Thomas Kerr, Director of Climate Change and Green Growth Initiatives at the World Economic Forum, shares the top 10 myths about climate change and green investment.
We begin 2013 with record wildfires and heat in Australia continuing the pattern of extreme weather events that we witnessed last year. A growing body of scientists...
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January 14, 2013
Are we at risk from rogue geoengineering?
As part of the Global Risks 2013 report, the World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network has identified five “X Factor” risks in partnership with Nature. These look beyond mainstream risks to five emerging potential game-changers.
In response to growing concerns about climate change, scientists are exploring ways in which they could, with international agreement, manipulate the Earth’s climate. But what if this technology were to be hijacked by a rogue state or individual?
Geoengineering can refer to many things, but it is most often associated with a scientific field that has come to be...
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January 11, 2013
The economy or the climate? It’s not a choice
What concerns me the most about risk is that 10 years from now, we’ll look back and say: “We knew, and we didn’t do enough” or “we didn’t do what we could have done”.
Coping with the economic and climate change crises is unfortunately no longer seen as a continuum, but as opposing choices. There’s an idea out there that somehow we can’t have both. We need to go beyond this thinking in boxes. Since smart risk management is about taking a holistic approach to situations, we should do the same when it comes to the economic and climate change challenges we’re facing.
Adaptation...
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January 11, 2013
Has climate change tipped out of control?
As part of the Global Risks Report 2013, the World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network has identified five “X Factor” risks in partnership with Nature. These look beyond mainstream risks to five emerging potential game-changers.
The threat of climate change is well known. But have we passed the point of no return? What if we have already triggered a runaway chain reaction that is rapidly tipping Earth’s atmosphere into an inhospitable state?
The natural greenhouse effect is a prerequisite for life. Without it, the Earth’s global average surface temperature would be far below zero. But our...
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January 9, 2013
Future proofing the world from climate change
The Forum:Blog has prepared a special series on “Resilient Dynamism”, the main theme of 2013’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Dominic Waughray, Senior Director and Head of Environmental Initiatives at the World Economic Forum, explains the economic risks of climate change.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2010 was the warmest year since accurate records began in the late 1800s. The following year, 19 nations set all-time extreme heat records. Based on records from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2011 was also the 35thconsecutive...
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December 20, 2012
Norway tops the table in the global energy race
Every country wants affordable, sustainable, and secure energy supplies; to live in a cleaner, greener planet where the lights also stay on.
But some countries are doing better than others at achieving it.
In the World Economic Forum’s The Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2013, compiled in collaboration with Accenture, the winners and losers in the global energy race are starkly laid out.
Norway and Sweden top the table of 105 countries when their scores for economic growth and development, environmental sustainability, and energy access and security are added up. They...
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December 17, 2012
How would life be in a 4°C warmer World?
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Patrick Verkooijen, the World Bank’s Special Representative for Climate Change, calls for action.
We know now that the goal adopted by the international community to limit climate change to a maximum temperature rise of 2°C would already bring serious damages and risks,...
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November 30, 2012
How can we unlock finance to fight climate change?
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, shares her perspective on climate change.
In the past few years we have learned valuable lessons about climate change. We have learned that the changes we need to make...
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November 30, 2012
The secret to affordable renewable energy
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Miranda Ballentine, Director of Sustainability for Wal-Mart, explains her company’s approach to renewable energy.
We’ve all heard it before – if you increase supply of renewable energy (government requires minimum percentage of renewable supply) and drive down the costs...
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November 30, 2012
Why we should fear the Amazonian tipping point
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Carlos Nobre, National Secretary of Research and Development Policies, Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation of Brazil, and Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio, Chief Executive Officer, Planetary Skin Institute (PSI), share their perspective on climate change. Both are...
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November 29, 2012
Why investors should care about climate risk
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Manuel Lewin, the Head of Responsible Investment at Zurich Insurance Company Ltd, shares his perspective on climate-friendly investment.
When the monsoon rains began to fall in Thailand in October, 2011, few observers could have anticipated that the subsequent flooding...
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November 28, 2012
Can data slow down climate change?
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, James Cameron, Chairman of Climate Change Capital, is sharing his perspective on climate change.
We all know the cliché “knowledge is power”. We can identify with it as individuals and can see our social, economic and political systems resonating with the proposition....
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November 28, 2012
The risks of climate change – a view from Chile
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Rodrigo Pérez Mackenna, Minister of Housing and Urbanism for Chile and Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Catastrophic Risks shares his insights.
Catastrophic risks are defined as events with a low probability but a big economic and social impact. A natural event could...
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November 27, 2012
Can we deliver on the promise of energy efficiency?
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Bruno Berthon, Global Managing Director of Strategy & Sustainability at Accenture, looks at global preparedness for climate change.
While it might lack the glamour of clean-tech, energy efficiency presents a major and immediate opportunity to reduce emissions, power...
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November 27, 2012
Where does China stand on climate change?
In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present their perspectives on climate change. Contributions are linked to the Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance project and the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In the following post, Wu Changhua, Director, Greater China Climate Group, and Co-Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Climate Change, adds a perspective from China.Today, a very often-asked question on China and climate change is how the new leadership views the issues and what steps are...
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November 26, 2012
How will we win the battle in Doha?
While on the plane to the Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai, I realized that there were only two weeks until the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar.
Another year is about to pass and the urgency of the climate crisis is ever-apparent. Extreme weather is more frequent, damaging the poorest and richest alike. Doha represents the next battle between human beings and nature – as humans continue to argue as to what is to be done about this crisis. I am not trying to give answers here, but simply to pose some important questions that need to be addressed by those...
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November 26, 2012
Paying the price for climate change
The climate is changing. Recent extreme weather events offer evidence that even the richest economies are not prepared. Despite the best efforts of international negotiators, we have not been able to agree on an effective binding regime to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the eye-popping price tags associated with events such as Hurricane Sandy (up to US$ 50 billion in damages) are generating momentum to change our approach to solve this vexing challenge.In a series of blog posts curated by the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiatives, a number of leading voices will present...
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November 26, 2012
Rio+20: Are we looking for leadership in the wrong place?
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil recently played host to Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.Almost 200 world leaders met over three days to discuss how to build a green economy that will help lift people out of poverty and how to improve international coordination for sustainable development.Perhaps predictably, the world’s media and the NGOs have declared Rio+20 a political failure of responsibility, but having attended the conference and spent time visiting local community projects, I’m convinced that we’re looking in the wrong place for leadership on sustainability.With...
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July 4, 2012
The challenges of Rio+20
For three days, as part of the High-level Segment at Rio+20, heads of state have made speeches and have sat at meetings to discuss the draft declaration text. If all goes well, the future we want will arrive on Friday. So, where do we stand?In these final discussions, the key issues were, broadly:Reaffirming the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: The bloc of poorest nations – the G77 – is adamant that this should be featured, otherwise it will be a “big retreat” from the Rio 1992 Statement. However, countries in the OCED wonder whether this principle is still valid for...
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June 22, 2012
Rio+20: What has changed in 20 years?
Maurice Strong, Secretary General for the 1992 Earth Summit (and a former Foundation Board Member of the Forum) has been in Rio. His interventions have been one of the highlights of the Rio+20 conference. He is right to remind people of how the world has changed dramatically in the 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit.For example, there has been economic success. Today 26% of the world’s population makes up the global middle class, meaning extreme poverty has been halved from 43% to just 21% in 2010.There has also been extraordinary progress in communications and technology, enabling...
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June 21, 2012
Why opening up Rio+20 works
Brazilian officials have circulated a new draft text for “The Future We Want”, the Rio+20 manifesto for a greener, more sustainable world. Many have been busy downloading the new draft and poring over details, looking for their particular area of interest.Meanwhile, close to 1,000 business and civil society participants, registered at the Hotel Windsor Barra, have been mingling and networking at the Corporate Sustainability Forum and taking part in panels and workshops on the sustainable development challenge. There is a tangible buzz in the air.By contrast, an hour away by bus at the...
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June 20, 2012
Rio+20: The future begins…
This week, close to 50,000 people from the world of sustainable development are descending on Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.On Monday and Tuesday 18 and 19 June, hundreds of side events, breakfasts, workshops and dinners are taking place in the hotels and conference centres across Rio.Experts, scientists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and business leaders are discussing the full spectrum of sustainable development issues and ideas, from energy to water, food security and green jobs.From 20 to 22 June, government representatives will arrive...
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June 19, 2012
Keeping it clean: the vital role of water and sanitation
Clean drinking water and good sanitation are vital to human health. Yet in 2010 about 2.5 billion people did not have access to decent sanitation facilities, and 1.4 billion lacked access to safe drinking water.About one billion of these live in urban slums, while population growth and rapid urbanization is making the problem more acute.Poor sanitation is a major cause of disease and a key indicator of urban poverty. More children die of diarrhoea, a preventable condition directly linked to faecal exposure, than of AIDS, malaria and measles combined.Experts agree that better sanitation could...
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June 18, 2012
President Calderon: Green Growth public private partnerships
How can the G20 transform our economies to maximize efficient, equitable use of resources, while meeting the challenge of ensuring economic stability and growth?We can start by dispelling the myth that economic growth and low-carbon, environmentally sensitive development are mutually exclusive objectives. A growth model that improves resource efficiency and mitigates climate change also generates a number of reinforcing benefits including accelerated job creation, healthier populations, expanded access to secure energy supplies and sustained global economic growth.As the President of Mexico,...
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June 18, 2012
Closing the green investment gap
In an era of compressed public budgets, we must ensure that public resources have the strongest possible impact in terms of making investments in the economy to stimulate economic growth and reduce negative environmental impact. In many countries, investors are somewhat reluctant to invest significantly in green infrastructure, due to perceived and actual policy and technological risks. This is why cooperation between governments, development banks and the private sector is so important. Some of this is already happening, but the benefits of more cooperation and risk sharing are significant....
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June 16, 2012
Green Growth – innovating with new and energy-efficient solutions
When the G20 meets later this month in Mexico, its leaders will face multiple challenges, from delivering global growth and tackling the Eurozone crisis to facing the lack of progress in addressing the environmental challenges of the planet as stated in the Rio+20 UN report. So, the number one focus will be stimulating growth – greener growth.We believe the G20 can start by sending a clear message on the benefits of low-carbon innovation, from energy efficiency solutions to clean energy products and services, as an engine for delivering green growth at a global, national, sector and...
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June 15, 2012
Open data systems: a collective response to a collective problem
Imagine the great data sets measuring the life support systems of the planet communicating freely with each other, accessible to the public, supplemented and enriched by crowd-sourced material and constantly generating the kind of analyses that problem solvers around the world could use to find solutions to our most intractable public goods dilemmas.A big open data system on the environment is achievable. Such a system could provide a service to governments around the world while making them more accountable to citizens. It could provide reliable performance indicators for corporate...
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June 15, 2012
Is it time to stop fossil fuel subsidies?
If we are serious about reducing the use of fossil fuels, why would we make them artificially cheaper? But, that is what we are doing through inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Many industrialized countries, for example, still support their coal mining industries to the tune of several billion euros a year while developing countries often spend considerable resources to keep domestic fuel prices below world prices. Eliminating such measures and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies more generally would help reduce fiscal imbalances, increase real incomes, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and...
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June 14, 2012
Tackling climate change: private sector involvement is essential
Tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our age, but it could also be one of our greatest opportunities.Reducing emissions on the necessary scale requires global action by all countries in all sectors of the economy. We’ll need nothing short of a revolution in the way energy is produced and consumed. The benefits of this transformation will go beyond the contribution it makes to combating climate change; it will improve the quality of life for everyone across all developing and developed countries.Achieving these objectives requires coordinated actions by all countries and...
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June 13, 2012
Rio+20
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), which took place in Rio de Janeiro on June 20-22, has been given the moniker “Rio+20” in reference to the amount of time that has passed since the UN historic Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Today, the imperative to come up with sustainable solutions to the world’s development challenges has never been more urgent.The World Economic Forum’s response has been to convene an extraordinary coalition of government, business, scientific and civil society leaders from diverse issue areas to deliver a message to governments to develop...
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June 13, 2012
The next steps to green, free trade
If ever there was an opportunity for global political leaders to back their commitments to strengthen global growth with real action, it would be through expanding trade and investment. The G8, G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) group have all have committed to trade liberalization and promised to promote it.But as Mexican President Felipe Calderón – a genuine “free trader” whose government has worked hard to sign new, and to consolidate existing, agreements – said at the 2011 G20 Business Summit, no sooner do world leaders commit to free trade than they begin to undermine it.A...
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June 12, 2012
Climate Change and Green Growth
IntroductionG2A2 outcomes from the Annual Meeting in DavosActivities at the UN Climate Talks in Doha at COP18Delivering private financing for climate-friendly growth: The Green Growth Action AllianceGreen Growth Action Alliance Working GroupsCalendarContact InformationIntroductionGreening economic growth is the only way in which sustainable, inclusive development can be achieved that will satisfy the basic needs of 9 billion people and provide them with equal rights to material prosperity. A key challenge is the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions to avoid the catastrophic impacts of...
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June 12, 2012
Green jobs for a growing world
We are facing an economic and social time bomb. About 210 million people are unemployed, including 75 million young people, and 1.52 billion workers are in precarious employment, many of them women.Meanwhile, 40 million people a year are expected to enter the labour forces of economies that cannot accommodate them.About 910 million workers earn less than US$ 2 a day. Between 2008 and 2011, 55 million more people became “working poor”. Almost 60% of the world’s workers have no secure employment contracts. And three quarters of the world’s population has no social protection. Where laws...
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June 11, 2012
Growing the green agenda at the Mexican G20
Can the G20 transform its economies to maximize the efficient and equitable use of resources while meeting the challenge of ensuring economic stability and growth?The 2012 Business 20 (B20) Green Growth Task Force strongly believes that the answer is yes. The Task Force, a unique multistakeholder group of leading banks, clean-energy companies, international financial institutions and NGOs, has worked for the past several months to develop an “Action Agenda” for green growth, to be delivered to G20 governments on 17 June. The recommendations are designed to crack a key challenge: attracting...
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June 11, 2012
Can capitalism save ocean conservation?
There is a pressing need – and an opportunity – for innovative public and private investment in ocean conservation and the responsible husbandry of marine resources. A landmark study brought forward by the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has documented at least US$ 50 billion in lost benefits that could be recouped every year from better organization and management of marine fishing.Aquaculture has provided nearly all of the growth in global fish production over recent decades. It will continue to expand to provide a critical source of future food...
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June 8, 2012
Aristotle had the answers…
First amazing day here in Istanbul and you can feel the excitement building at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, North Africa and Eurasia. What is already clear is that after the Arab Spring and with all the economic and political changes, the time and place for this event is right. Istanbul – consistent with its history – is positioned as a central hub between Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This is a huge opportunity of cultural confluence.Today, we worked in a session preparing for Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development that will be held...
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June 6, 2012
What if there were no more coral reefs?
The loss of coral reefs could threaten the livelihoods of 500 million people, warns Pavan Sukhdev. The interview is part of the Risk Response Network’s “What if?” series.What is your main field of expertise and current research? My main field of expertise is the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, but currently I am examining the corporation and trying to understand how today’s business needs to change to provide a green economy. This involves looking at corporate values as well as the costs of losing biodiversity and ecosystems.Given your research, what would you...
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June 5, 2012
Paradise reclaimed
Near the Thailand Myanmar border and up in the beautifully dense greenery of the high mountains, the Doi Tung community covers 150 square kilometres, and has a population of 11,000 people from 6 different ethnic minority tribes. Here, you will find one hospital, six health clinics providing pre and post natal care, and even schools that teach with the sophisticated Montessori method, an educational approach often only available at private schools in urban centres. You would have never guessed that only 25 years ago, this peaceful area was completely stripped of its forest from slash-and-burn...
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May 31, 2012
Waking up to the threat of natural disasters
Last year was a major wake-up call for the global economy. With natural catastrophes causing economic losses of approximately US$ 366 billion, the highest on record, the question I’m left pondering is this: Has anyone woken up yet?When I think back over the business headlines from the last six months it’s all about the euro crisis, US jobs and China’s soft landing. I can’t help but worry that one of the biggest stories of our times is passing us by – the effects of natural disasters on the global economy. Resilience to high-impact, low probability events is becoming the factor underpinning...
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May 25, 2012
Goals for getting to zero on extreme poverty
Societies around the globe are confronting a daily sense of fragility as economic, environmental, and social forces combine to produce surprise after surprise after surprise. There is a common fear that, even in cases of rapid advance, the gains might prove illusory or unsustainable.But the upside of uncertainty is that good news often comes where it’s least expected. Many feel this way when they read the most recent World Bank estimates showing dramatic global declines in extreme poverty, measured by those living under $1.25/day. East Asia has led the way with the fastest...
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May 25, 2012
Connect earth and the ether for our green revolution
Three intense days at the World Economic Forum in Addis Ababa. The city is a traffic packed building site, high rises and highways growing on the humus of shacks and alleys. My taxi driver Bershe said he is happy and proud of all the changes in the last few years. Then added with a broad smile that life for his family is tougher now than it has ever been! “I need another birr”. The next day, having readily agreed to fetch me from my hotel at 7.30 am, he turned up 30 minutes early, waited fifteen and left! Said he had to take his daughter to school. I thought well, he’s got his priorities...
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May 14, 2012
Conserve what we love
The World Economic Forum is travelling to Ethiopia this week to bring together the voices of Africa and help transform the region. 32 Global Shapers from across the continent will be attending the event. This blog post is part of the One Year One Change campaign, which shares visions for a better Africa. What change do you want to see in Africa by 2013? #1y1cBy the early 20th century two opposing groups had become apparent within the environmental movement: conservationists and preservationists. Preservationists seek to protect nature by eliminating human impact while...
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May 8, 2012
Grounding the notion of culture in soil
I recently encountered Chris Wong, a fellow Toronto Shaper, at Seedy Saturday: a setting that brings together people who are enthusiastic about vegetable gardening workshops, seed exchange and simply playing in the dirt. Chris was sharing the Young Urban Farmers (YUF), his brilliant entity, which makes it easy to “grow fresh food in the city”.A handful of us Global Shapers are expressing affection for the soil. I spent a great deal of my undergraduate years digging into the social context of healthy soil. In his article, “Solve hunger? Save soil”, Howard Buffett considers how “soil...
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April 24, 2012
What if we fail to adapt to the new era of scarcity?
Dominic Waughray,Head of Environmental Initiatives at the World Economic Forum, explores what could happen if the world fails to get to grips with the new reality of extreme weather and scarce resources. The interview is part of the Risk Response Network’s “What if?” series.What is your main field of expertise and current research? I am Senior Director of Environmental Initiatives at the World Economic Forum. This means that I have an institutional, professional and personal interest in looking at environmental and sustainability issues within the context of economic growth.Given your...
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April 11, 2012
Tiny seedlings to tall trees: 20 years of IPÊ
Twenty years ago, we planted the seed of an ipê tree. With the mission of contributing to the conservation of Brazil’s biodiversity, we founded a non-profit organization: IPÊ – Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (Institute for Ecological Research). Our name was carefully chosen to form the acronym, IPE, since the ipê, one of the most beautiful flowering trees in the world, is the national tree of Brazil.Gradually, our branches spread to accommodate the variety of demands of conservation. While we started out trying to save Brazil’s biodiversity by focusing on endangered species, it soon became...
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March 27, 2012
World Water Day: The world is thirsty because we are hungry
“The World is Thirsty Because We are Hungry” is the message of the 2012 World Water Day. It puts in a nutshell one of the key links in the complex nexus of water, food, climate and energy: the crucial relationship between water and the production of our food.The agricultural industry is by far the heaviest consumer, accounting for almost 70% of all fresh water used. In developing countries, agricultural water consumption is as high as 95%. Compare the quantity of water the average person drinks per day, 2 to 4 litres, to that required to grow and produce a single kilogram of cereal: up to 3...
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March 22, 2012
Raising awareness of the global water crisis
In matching royal-blue shirts and caps, thousands of Chinese students are forming human dragons across Beijing. This choreography is taking place in celebration of World Water Day, 22 March, and in honour of the Year of the Water Dragon, the current year of the Chinese zodiac. While a year such as this symbolizes growth and optimism, the young people forming the human dragons are drawing attention to an urgent and troubling matter: a worldwide water crisis. Water scarcity is possibly the world’s most pressing environmental issue.The composition of the undulating dragon can only be appreciated...
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March 21, 2012
How to make green growth a reality
In a series of posts leading up to the World Economic Forum’s Energy for Economic Growth report launched on Wednesday 7th March 2012, Ditlev Engel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vestas Wind Systems, Denmark, explains how tapping into market forces can promote renewable energy.Managing resources for truly sustainable economic growth is rapidly becoming one of this century’s greatest imperatives – and opportunities. Green growth is a matter of making our societies more sustainable while still compatible with a modern way of living. Properly managed and supported, it also results in...
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March 5, 2012
Davos Daily: Measuring Carbon Emissions in Davos
Measuring Carbon Emissions in Davos By Michael Woelk, CEO of PicarroTransformation. Transparency. New models. Reinvention. Responsibility. Green. These have been core elements to practically every discussion or session I’ve had or participated in – from Thomas Friedman’s Wake-up Call to America to Dr Oz telling me I need to sleep more. These are truly memorable events!But here’s something I know more about than anyone else participating the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012: the amount of carbon emissions emitted before and during the conference. You see, with our instruments on...
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January 28, 2012
Unilever’s Keith Weed: Moving beyond corporate social responsibility
One of the challenges we face each year in Davos is to keep a focus on long term global, regional and industry agendas in amidst the myriad short term issues around us and that the media invariably focus on. Of course ‘great transformations’, ‘shared values’ and sustainability initiatives don’t provide for sexy copy, as Gillian Tett emphasized in the FT debate on Tuesday night that I participated in. But if we can’t take a step back here with such a broad group of leaders to look at different ways of doing business, then I’m not sure when we ever can. I am...
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January 27, 2012
Making the Business Case for Conservation
What is the business case for conservation? Just a few years ago, I don’t think many people in either the business or conservation communities would have thought to even pose that question, let alone try to answer it in a meaningful way. But times are changing. The challenge for both of our communities is to think big, beyond the next factory or the next land deal, beyond the next quarter or the next fund-raising campaign.Companies have been reporting on their sustainability efforts for years. That is not news. The difference today is the urgency of those reports; sustainability is moving...
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January 27, 2012
Carbon neutral skies
The Carbon Neutral Skies project will provide a platform for stakeholders to identify economic measures to facilitate the implementation of carbon management strategies for the aviation industry that enable the industry to reach its carbon reduction goals and targets while minimizing competitive distortion among operators, countries and regions.
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November 5, 2010
Agriculture and Food Security
Overview The Issue A New Vision for Agriculture Who Is Involved? Project Activity Grow Africa and the G8 News, Videos, Reports and Blog PostsThe New Vision for agriculture: Transforming agriculture through collaborationIn order to feed a population of 9 billion in 2050, the world will need a New Vision for Agriculture - delivering food security, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity through agriculture. This will require producing more food with fewer resources while reinvigorating rural economies. It can be achieved through collaboration, investment and innovation among...
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October 19, 2010
Water
Local Water Crises ACT: Analysis Country-level Work and Engaging GovernmentsWater SecurityA note about the 2030 Water Resources Group Water security (whether it be the challenge of too little water over long periods of time, or too much water all at once) is one of the most tangible and fastest-growing social, political and economic challenges faced today. It is also a fast-unfolding environmental crisis. In every sector, the demand for water is expected to increase and analysis suggests that the world will face a 40% global shortfall between forecast demand and available...
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October 19, 2010
