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AFTERWORD
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Global Change and
Our Common Future
by GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND
We live in an historic transitional period of burgeoning
awareness of the conflict between human activities and envi-
ronmental constraints. The world is finite, but it will have to
provide food and energy to meet the needs of a doubled world
population some time in the coming century. Its natural re-
sources, already overtaxed in many areas, will have to sustain a
worIci economy that may be 5 to 10 times larger than the present
one. This cannot be done if humans continue to pursue current
patterns.
As people continue their endless quest for new materials,
new energy forms, and new processes, the constraints imposed
by clepletion of natural resources and the pollution caused by
human activity have brought society to a crossroads. Abun-
dance coexists with extreme need, waste overshadows want,
The Afterword is adapted from the keynote address and Franklin Lecture pre-
sented by Mme, Brundtland at the Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future,
Washington, D.C., May 2, 1989. The views do not necessarily reflect those of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences.
147
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AFTERWORD
and our very existence may be in danger owing to mismanage-
ment and overexploitation of the environment. In spite of all
the technological and scientific triumphs of the present century,
there have never been so many poor, illiterate, or unemployed
people in the world, and their numbers are growing. As they
struggle to survive, they have little choice but to pursue activi-
ties that may undermine the environment, the natural resource
base on which they depend, and the conditions that sustain life
itself.
As the descriptions in this book make all too clear, we
face a grim catalog of environmental deterioration. The very
real possibility that our actions are depleting the earth's genetic
resources, changing the climate and the composition of the at-
mosphere, and upsetting the chemical balance of our lakes and
waterways proves that if we all do as we please In the short
run, we will all lose in the long run. We need to develop a
more global mentality as we chart our collective future, and we
need not only firm political and institutional leadership but also
sound scientific advice. Indeed, the role of men and women of
science in shaping our future will become more central as the
challenging dynamics of global change gradually become clear.
The interplay between scientific process and public policy
is not new but has been a characteristic of most of the great
turning points in human history. One need Took no further than
the dawning of the nuclear age to see that Fermi, Bohr, Oppen-
heimer, and Sakharov influenced today's world just as much as
Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, Gandhi, and Hammarskjold did. It
may be more important than ever for scientists to keep the doors
of their laboratories open to political, economic, social, anct ide-
ological currents. The role of scientists as isolated explorers of
the uncharted world of tomorrow must be reconciled with their
role as committed, responsible citizens of the unsettled world of
today.
The international agenda is varied and complex, but also
promising. Advances are being made in a number of fields.
The most notable of these may be that tensions between East
and West are easing, brightening prospects for gains in peace
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149
and security and the settlement of regional conflicts. Should we
not take advantage of this favorable atmosphere and direct our
efforts toward the critical environment and development issues
facing us? Many of these problems cannot be solved within the
confines of the nation state, nor by maintaining the dichotomy
between friend and foe. We must increase communication and
exchange and cultivate greater pluralism and openness.
In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Devel-
opment, of which ~ was chairperson, presented its report, Our
Common Future. The report sounded an urgent warning: Present
trends cannot continue. They must be reversed. The Commis-
sion did not, however, add its voice to that of those who predict
continuous negative trends and decline. The Commission en-
visioned a positive future. Never before in our history have
we had so much knowledge, such sophisticated technology, ant!
such wicle access to resources. We have an opportunity to break
the negative trends of the past. For this to happen, we need new
concepts and new values based on a new global ethic. We must
mobilize political will and human ingenuity. We need closer
multilateral cooperation based on the recognition that nations
are increasingly interdependent.
The World Commission offered the concept of sustainable
development, which it defined as an approach toward meeting
the needs and aspirations of present and future generations
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs. It is a concept that can mobilize broader political
consensus, one on which the international community can and
should build. it is a broad concept of social and economic
progress. lit requires political reform, access to knowledge and
resources, and a more just and equitable distribution of wealth
within and between nations. it demands that we move beyond
compartmentalization and outmoded patterns to draw the very
best of our intellectual and moral resources from every field
of endeavor. Over the past couple of years, some progress has
been made in the environmental field, both in terms of raising
consciousness and in terms of taking on particular challenges,
such as in the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer and the Basel
\
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Convention on hazardous wastes. The picture is very uneven,
however, and the achievements do not justify complacency.
As far as development is concerned, the 1980s were a lost
decade. Some countries did well, but in the Third World eco-
nomic retrogression was widespread. Living standards have
declined by one fifth in sub-Saharan Africa since 1970. Unsus-
tainable, crushing burdens of debt and reverse financial flows,
depressed commodity prices, protectionism, and abnormally
high interest rates have all created an extremely unfavorable
international climate for development in the Third World.
It is politically, economically, and morally unacceptable that
there is a net transfer of resources from poor countries to rich
ones. Nearly a billion people live in poverty and squalor, and
the per capita income of some 50 developing countries has con-
tinued to decline over the past few years.
These trends must be reversed. As the World Commission
pointed out, only growth can eliminate poverty. Only growth
can create the capacity to solve environmental problems. But
growth cannot be based on overexploitation of the resources of
developing countries. It must be managed to enhance the re-
source base on which these countries all depend. We must create
external conditions that will help rather than hinder developing
countries in realizing their full potential.
We need a global consensus for economic growth in the
1990s. Such a unified plan must include the following attributes:
. Economic policy must be coordinated to promote vig-
orous, noninflationary economic growth. Major challenges in-
clucle reducing the imbalance of payments between developing
nations and the United States, Japan, and the Federal Republic
of Germany, and making the surpluses of wealthy industrialized
nations readily available to developing countries. The financial
surpluses of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development) countries should be increasingly invested in
developing countries rather than used to finance private con-
sumption in the major industrialized countries.
. Policies should be adopted that will foster more stable
exchange rates and increase access to markets on a global ba
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151
sis. Protectionism is a confrontational issue and a no-win game.
Every year developing countries lose twice as much clue to pro-
tectionism as the total they receive in development assistance.
The benefits of free trade for both the North and the South are
obvious.
· Policies should be devised that will sustain and improve
commodity prices. Other policies should encourage and support
diversification of the economies of the cleveloping countries.
· Third World debt must be reduced. This problem re-
quires major new efforts. For debt owect to multilateral institu-
tions, the scheme based on a Nordic proposal to soften interest
payments on such loans has been taken up by the World Bank.
~ believe this and similar schemes should be extended in the
future. According to a very civilized, ancient legal provision,
"If a man owes a debt, and the storm inundates his field and
carries away the produce, or if the grain has not grown in the
field, in that year he shall not make any return to the creditor,
he shall alter his contract and he shall not pay interest for that
year." This quote from the Code of Hammurabi, King of Baby-
lon, dates from 2250 B.C. Four thousand years later the debt
burdens, the environmental crisis, and the decline in the flows
of resource transfers deserve equally civilized consideration.
In acictition to revamping our debt policies, we should
increase development assistance for the poorer nations of the
developing world, especially in Africa. In recent years, Norway
has given around I.] percent of its gross national product in
official development assistance to developing countries, and we
are disappointed that the OECD average has declined to a mea-
ger 0.34 percent. Those donor countries that have been lagging
behind should make renewed efforts in line with their abilities.
The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe should also contribute
to a far greater extent than they have so far. The developing
countries have been declaring their readiness to do their part in
terms of policy reforms and constructive negotiations.
A global consensus for economic growth in the 1990s must
be consistent with sustainable development. It must take heed
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52
AFTERWORD
of ecological constraints. There are no sanctuaries on this planet.
If 1990s are truly to be a decade during which we respond to the
serious problems confronting the world, the issue of sustainable
global development requires special, and urgent, attention.
The threats to the global environment have the potential
to open our eyes and make us accept that North and South
will have to forge an equal partnership. It is time to launch a
new era of international cooperation. Issues like the debt crisis,
trade policies, resources for the international financial institu-
tions, harnessing technology for global benefit, strengthening
the Unitecl Nations system, and specific major threats to the en-
vironment such as global warming are increasingly interrelated.
Is it not appropriate to consider our economic and our environ-
mental concerns together, given the critical links between the
two?
Third WorIcl nations seem convinced that the poverty they
endure is not a mere aberration of international economic re-
lations that can be corrected by minor adjustments, but rather
is the unspoken premise of the present economic order. De-
veloping countries have had to produce more and sell more in
order to earn money to service debt and pay for imports. The
amount of coffee, cotton, or copper they must produce to buy
a water pump, antibiotics, or a truck keeps increasing. This
has caused people to place extra stress on the environment,
which has fueled soil erosion, accelerated the cancerous process
of desertification and deforestation, and begun to threaten the
genetic diversity that is the basis for tomorrow's biotechnology,
agriculture, and food supply.
Biotechnology warrants special consideration because of its
potential effects on agriculture and food security in the Third
World. It is difficult to imagine producing enough food to feed
a doubled worIcl population without employing the techniques
and advances of biotechnology. The benefits of plant breed-
ing and breeding of varieties with greater resistance and more
rapid growth potential have been and will continue to be im-
mense. But there are inherent dangers that could further widen
the gap between poor and rich. These benefits may become
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153
available only to the rich, even though the genes employed in
the process often originated in developing countries. Strong
international corporations may dominate this field. Legal pro-
tection and very firm rules regarding rights of ownership may
reduce the availability of products that are important for nutri-
tion and the prevention of famine. Small-scale farmers in the
Third World risk being victims in this process. if biotechnology
produces substitutes for their crops, they may lose income and
the ability to provide for their families.
These problems are avoidable. The industrialized countries
have a responsibility for controlling market forces in this field
and for promoting greater equity between developed and devel-
oping countries. The protection of intellectual property rights
and royalties must be in a form that promotes research, provides
for a fair distribution of financial benefits between inventors and
the country of genetic origin, and, not least, makes the products
of biotechnology available to those who need them.
The issues related to handling of biotechnology also pertain
to our response to the possibility of global heating and climatic
change. These events may require drastic changes in how we
conduct our daily lives, and pose more severe threats to future
development than any other challenge mankind has faced. A
possible exception is the threat of nuclear war, but there is a
decisive difference. At present nuclear war seems more remote
than at any time since World War IT, but unless we reduce our
consumption of fossil fuels, we will be caught in the heat trap
of global warming.
We may be about to alter the entire ecological balance of the
earth. Plants and animals normally need hundreds of years to
acIjust to new climate conditions. Unless we make changes in
our collective behavior, ecosystems will not have time to adjust.
Deserts will spread. Crops will be lost. What will happen if we
experience 2 years in succession in which summers are as dry as
the one in 198S, or 10 such summers? What will happen to crop
yields? Can we conceive of a doubling of food prices, or even
food scarcity in the industrialized countries? The developed
countries may be able to cope in the short run as long as they
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AFTERWORD
can pay for necessary imports, but that option will soon be lost
to the developing countries. Can we imagine the effects on low-
lying countries if sea level should rise according to predictions?
How will we handle the political instability that will accompany
increased migration as the number of environmental refugees
continues to multiply?
These things may not happen, or may not be that drastic.
But the potential risks are so high that we cannot sit back hoping
that the problems will solve themselves.
The present generation has a great responsibility to con-
trol its use of limited resources, in particular the fossil fuels,
which, when burned, contribute so significantly to the buildup
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We must recognize that
the earth's atmosphere is a closed system. We do not get rid of
our emissions when we vent them to the atmosphere. in fact,
the current system is like a car that channels its fumes into the
driver's compartment.
We must combat the myth that energy consumption can be
allowed to grow unchecked. The industrialized countries have
the greatest resources, both financially and technologically, to
change production and consumption patterns. The developing
countries will need much more energy in the future. Many of
them have contributed only marginally to the greenhouse effect,
and many of them will be most severely victimized by the effects
of global warming. They must be allowed time to adapt, and a
chance to increase their energy consumption and standards of
living. it is quite clear that developing countries need assistance
in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of industrialized coun-
tries. lit is essential that energy-efficient technology be made
available to developing countries even when they cannot pay
market prices without assistance.
We need concerted international action. There are certain
imperatives that must be vigorously pursued:
. We must agree on regional strategies for stabilizing and
reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Reforestation efforts
must be included as a vital part of the carbon equation.
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. We must strongly intensify our efforts to develop re-
newable forms of energy. Renewable energy should become the
foundation of the global energy structure during the twenty-first
century.
· We should speed up our efforts on international agree-
ments to protect the atmosphere. There are different views on
how to proceed on this issue. T urge that negotiations to limit
emissions of greenhouse gases begin immediately.
Twenty-two heads of state or government took steps to-
ward achieving these goals in March 1989, when they signed a
declaration that set a standard for future achievements to pro-
tect the atmosphere. The Declaration of The Hague calls for
more effective decision-making and enforcement mechanisms
In international cooperation as well as greater solidarity among
nations and between generations. The declaration calls for a
new international authority with real powers. On occasion its
power must be exercised even if unanimity cannot be reached.
The principles we endorsed are radical, but a less ambitious
approach will not serve us. The burden must be shared. That is
why we called for fair and equitable assistance to compensate
those developing countries that will be most severely affected
by a changing climate but that have contributed only marginally
to global warming.
In April 1989 the Norwegian government adoptect a white
paper in response to the proposals advanced in Our Common
Future. The white paper is the Norwegian government's major
policy document on sustainable development. It presents a plan
that involves all ministries, not only that of environment, and
implies change in attitudes and policies, and tough challenges
for ministries such as energy, industry, transportation, finance,
foreign affairs, and trade. The prime minister's office has been
directly engaged in charting a course for the future that cuts
across all of these sectors.
The issue of atmospheric pollution and climate change
proved very difficult because Norway is fortunate in having
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vast hydropower resources. We do not burn coal or of} to pro-
duce electricity. Any reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in
Norway would involve transportation. Nonetheless, Norway
adopted a policy for stabilizing its carbon dioxide emissions
during the 199Os, and by the year 2000 at the latest. By also
reducing its emissions of CFCs and nitrogen oxides, Norway
will be able to reduce its total emissions of greenhouse gases by
the turn of the century. The government anticipates that further
reductions will be possible thereafter. ~ believe we are the first
country to make a political commitment to reduce carbon diox-
ide emissions, even though Norway contributes only 0.2 percent
of the carbon dioxide emitted worldwide.
While even one nation can work to improve conditions in
the global environment, ecological problems such as the ozone
layer, global warming, and unsustainable use of the tropical
forests clearly face mankind as a whole. To adciress these prob-
lems, additional resources will be needed. In the white paper,
we propose, as a starting point, that industrialized countries
allocate 0.1 percent of their gross domestic product to an "Inter-
national Fund for the Atmosphere." Tcleally, all countries would
contribute. Much work is needed to make this proposal opera-
tional, and it will meet considerable resistance. But unless we
establish a set of international support mechanisms, there is little
chance that we will be able to reduce greenhouse emissions in
time to slow the rate of global warming, or even give ourselves
sufficient time to adapt.
To transform the essence of Our Common Future into real-
ity will require broad participation. Every person can make a
difference. Changes are the sum of individual actions based
on common goals. A particular challenge goes to youth. More
than ever before, we need a new generation today's young
people-that can use their energy and dedication to transform
ideas into reality. Many of today's decision makers have yet to
realize the pert! in which the earth has been placed. T believe
that Our Common Future can be an effective lever in the hands
of youth and that its core concepts that development must be
sustainable, and that the environment and world economy are
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157
totally, permanently intertwined transcend nationality, culture,
ideology, and race. Young people will hold their governments
responsible and accountable, and will build the foundation of
their own future.
If we are earnest in our desire to solve some of the pressing
problems facing humanity, we can no longer separate the global
environment from political, economic, and moral issues. En-
vironmental considerations must permeate all decisions, from
consumer choices to national budgets to international agree-
ments. We must learn that environmental considerations are
part of unified management of our planet. This is our ethical
challenge. This is our practical challenge. A challenge we must
all accept.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
global warming
